Relief facts for kids

Persian relief from Qajar era in the style of Persepolis, located at Tangeh Savashi.

Relief is a way of making sculptures or carvings. You start with a flat stone or wooden base, and take small parts away until you have made the art you want.

Reliefs are found around the world. They can be used to decorate buildings, such as temples. Usually the artist makes reliefs of figures, such as people or animals.

Rock relief at Naqsh-e Rustam; the Persian Sassanian emperor Shapur I (on horseback) with Roman emperors submitting to him

In bas-relief, only a bit of the base is taken away. The figure is quite flat and this is especially common in friezes. An alto-relief is where the artist takes away a lot of the base material. This can be very detailed.

Images for kids

A face of the high-relief Frieze of Parnassus round the base of the Albert Memorial in London. Most of the heads and many feet are completely undercut, but the torsos are "engaged" with the surface behind.

A sunk-relief depiction of Pharaoh Akhenaten with his wife Nefertiti and daughters. The main background has not been removed, merely that in the immediate vicinity of the sculpted form. Note how strong shadows are needed to define the image.

French Gothic diptych, 25 cm (9.8 in) high, with crowded scenes from the Life of Christ, c. 1350–1365.

Sunk relief as low relief within a sunk outline, from the Luxor Temple in Egypt, carved in very hard granite

low relief within a sunk outline, linear sunk relief in the hieroglyphs, and high relief (right), from Luxor

"Blocked-out" unfinished low relief of Ahkenaten and Nefertiti; unfinished Greek and Persian high-reliefs show the same method of beginning a work.

Bas-relief in Persepolis – a symbol of Zoroastrian Nowruz – in day of a spring equinox power of eternally fighting bull (personifying the Earth), and a lion (personifying the Sun), are equal

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